I agree.... Riding on a C-130 as a passenger is a miserable experience. The seats are terrible, the climate controls are terrible, the noise is terrible. As a crew member it's ok
Mark, Are your engines really noisy? I've only been around a few military cargo planes but I remember a 4 prop one that landed at my airport that had the noisiest engines I ever heard. It sounded like the props were gear-driven and they had some extra gravel in there or something. They kept the engines idling for quite a long time on the ramp. .
That's a bad ass picture! My longest flight(s) on a C-130 was from Ramstein Germany to Little Rock. 24 hours of flight time and three days to get there. The coolest part was between Iceland and Goose Lake. The crew let the few of us go in to the cockpit to see the Northern Lights. It was pretty neat and freaky. It was like entering the Twilight Zone. GT
That's about right for a C-130, it sounds like a whole lot of very poorly lubricated machinery being tortured to death. The flight deck isn't terrible but you want to wear hearing protection. I wear both ear plugs and a Bose noise canceling head set. In the cargo (where passengers sit) compartment it's really uncomfortably loud and hearing protection is a must. There is also a lot of vibration in the back that puts a lot of people to sleep. In theory it could smooth if the props are synced up perfectly but that pretty much never happens so you have constant vibration. Having said all that..... The newer J model C-130 with the six blade props is MUCH quieter on the ground. They have a special engine mode which kinda decouples the props from the engines so its way better for on/off loading with engines running. Now having said all if the above. The C-130 can actually be fairly quiet compared to a lot of jets.
That's why I couldn't call you Friday morning, was out in middle of nowhere. Just enough signal to text. That sounds awful. The longest trip I have had in the back of the plane was a few weeks ago from Montgomery, AL back to LR. Just over an hour and that was enough for me. There are occasionally some interesting sights from the cockpit. Never seen the northern lights but I have gotten a good view of some meteor showers while in the pitch black middle of nowhere Saudi Arabia.
We got the idea from a picture that was taken a a few years ago when some guys did exactly that..... But they were much closer and banked the plane up to 60 degrees going by. I can't find it online but I know we have it someplace at work. That mountain we were on is actually named Flat Side Pinnacle. It wasn't even that close, ballpark I would say they were 500-600 feet away from the top of the mountain laterally and maybe 700 feet above the valley floor. I doubt another crazy Pinnacle flyby is gonna happen, at least by anyone who wants to keep their wings. Too many people and there are some big houses right near there with owners who like to complain. Out to the west it's fine to fly low level and nobody will complain. Typically it's flown what is called 300' modified contour which means you might see a little lower than that on the radar altimeter when crossing ridge lines.
Some guys did that a couple years ago.... Our building was right next to the control tower and they supposedly did a 180 around the control tower. The tower guys say they were even with the tower cab and though they were gonna get hit and blah blah blah.... I think they were severely exaggerating in their compliant but the pilots did get hauled in front of the Wing commander. The tower is only 12 stories tall and to be even with it would be pretty much impossible as the wing dips something like 60 feet in a hard turn and they would have hit something.
Swedish AF buzzed one of their army exercises at 15', they got in some trouble. Apparently it happened in '08 but the video only came out recently. I hadn't seen it before today. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOSRubXJHQo&sns=em[/ame]
I was in a 130 one time (of many) over ocean, heading to Puerto Rico with my unit. Lost hydraulic fluid over ocean and pilot had to gradually put down landing gear one bit at a time for nearly 30 minutes to get gear down. Crew was filling hydraulic fluid in flight while one guy had spotlight looking out porthole at the engines. After the emergency landing at the wrong airport in PR, we were taken to the other side of the island. We were supposed to jump the next day and they brought in another 130 for us. However, after sitting on the tarmac in the sun for 2 hours, after being JMPI'd, we were told that newly arrived 130 had mechanical issues as well and the jump was cancelled. Not that I minded because the DZ was littered with construction equipment (bulldozers, cranes, trucks). But interestingly enough, I remembered (while sitting in the hot sun with a parachute on) seeing the crews golf clubs up front. What a coincidence, eh? Two C130s have mechanical failures and each crew has their sticks with them. Wasn't you was it?
Chad- Same thing seemed to happen near Athens, Greece in the olden days. On a flight from Ankara to Wiesbaden with a fuel stop in Athens (C-118), on take-off the crew aborted and I had to spend (darn) 2 days in Athens. Base ops said that happened frequently. Not sure if they had golf clubs or not. On another C-130 flight, they started losing hydraulic fluid, ran out of fluid to top it up, and ended up using every fluid on board including oil, water, cokes, coffee, etc, but at least she got them home. Doubt the hydraulic pumps were worth much after that flight.
I've heard of at least one case (not necessarily a C-130) where occupants were asked to urinate into the line.....
No..... But Herk hydraulic leaks have given me some great (and not so great) vacations over the years. I'm not a golfer but I know plenty of guys who will bring their clubs on trips.
The J model is much more quiet on the ground because at idle, the props are turning at a much lower speed. In the earlier model C130's the engines are single shaft machines. That is the prop is geared directly to the compressor and turbine, and at idle the props are turning at or above 75% speed all the time just to keep the engine running. The J the engine has a free turbine and when you go to idle speed the prop speed drops way off and it is much more quiet. The old configuration has the advantage of keeping the engine and prop speed high all the time you are in the air, so if you need power there is no spool up time. Pour in fuel and you make power instantly, no lag at all. With a free turbine at flight idle, the gas generator can slow down and, like a fan engine, it takes time to spool the engine back up and make power so you don't have that instant throttle response. As with a fan engine you have to stay ahead of the airplane and if you think you are getting slow, you need to call up some power... You can't get too far behind or you an get into trouble because when you call for power from idle, it will take a few seconds to actually make some power.
As to the reliability off these planes, remember that C130's are getting really old. B models still in use with the Guard and Reserve began deliveries in 1959, and deliveries of E models began in 1962, some of these are now over 50 years old. Deliveries of the H model began in 1974 and these are the mainstay of the fleet. That said, the truth is the AF has mismanaged the maintenance of the engines in these aircraft. The problem was that the engines were removed from aircraft for maintenance and sent to San Antonio. Once there, they were stripped down and the parts were put into bins, with no tracking or sorting relative to age (something that would never happen in the civilian world). Parts were either "serviceable" or "non-serviceable", and lots of parts that were well more than half worn were put into engines along with new parts. The "serviceable" designation was based on when they expected to see the engine again. The problem was that the time left on the most worn part determined when the engine came back for more repair. So the expected TBO kept shrinking, and since the expected TBO was short, they were fine putting junk parts back into engines. New engines were going for literally thousands of hours before the first removal, and engines coming out of San Antonio were going for shorter and shorter time between removal because the parts they were putting back into engines were getting worse with each return. At one point they were seeing engines coming back after less than 500 hours in the field on average, and some engines were back after less than 200 hours. The Navy came to Allison asking them to help them fix the problem for the P3's and guarantee a TBO, but the AF owned the San Antonio facility and didn't want to buy new parts that would make that possible. I don't know what is going on now with the maintenance of these engines, I haven't been involved in the issue for over 10 years now, but at one point they were trying to get a handle on it and start buying some new parts and initiating a tracking system, but the problem was considered too massive to even tackle at the time. The J is being maintained as a commercial engine and shouldn't ever have this problem. Passengers and operators tend to take for granted the high reliability and low maintenance of turbines, but, just like any engine, if you want long life you need to maintain it properly and if you don't you can get into trouble. That means you need to have a tracking system for life limited parts, and then you need to replace those parts in a timely manner because it saves you money in the long run. With the T56, the AF got away on the cheap for a long time and then found a mess on their hands.
B models have been gone for a long time. The last E model on active duty belonged to the 314th AW which was active duty / AETC and was flown to the boneyard a couple years ago. There may be a couple floating around various places but I suspect they are for foreign sales but even the Afgan AF is getting H1s. The guard/reserve doesn't have any E's left either, the Puerto Rico ANG was the last and they have had H1s since maybe '10. All active duty H models will be gone in the next year or so, the majority of the active duty fleet are Js. Interesting to hear about the engine mx side of things. I gotta wonder how much crew practices contribute to the situation. I know some guys the fly around at 1010 TIT which IS max continuous power but significantly decreases life as compared to having it in the 900s for cruising.
If you decrease the temperature by 25 degrees F you double the life of hot section components that are stress or creep rupture life limited. And if you go another 25 degrees further the life doubles again. Running 50F cooler results in a life of about 4X that of running at higher power, so yes if you have no sympathy for the engines and run hard all the time you will eat life like crazy. Letting guys do that is just poor training. Just because it says max continuous doesn't mean you should sit there and burn the thing down. Backing off just a very small bit really makes things last a lot longer. I think crews should be assigned aircraft and then they would have responsibility for them and probably would not beat on them as much. Today it's kinda like rental cars, lots of pilots don't care how the beat up on the machinery because it isn't theirs.
Some of it is training but it's mostly an active duty problem and I think most of it is driven by leadership, not that the Colonels and Generals want you to fly engines hot but by the mission tempo and some other less tangible factors. If your boss consistently gives you a meaningless mission with a sh tty long day that you gotta bust your ass just to try complete then you are probably gonna drive his equipment around at redline. Back in '09 I remember some people got in trouble because they started marking cargo loads that seemed familiar. Sure enough there were pallet loads of tires and other crap that were just being flown around Iraq for the sake of flying planes. There was a Major General we were flying with one day who told us it was vital that the Iraqis see us constantly flying in and out in order to project a constant presence, even if it was an empty plane. On the lower levels I think it was done quite a bit so at the squadron and group level leadership could maintain mission accomplishment numbers in the up 90% range. The planes were constantly breaking because nobody gave a sh t which meant various mission legs were always getting cancelled but they could re cut the mission and it usually didn't matter because it was a BS mission to start with and they could massage the numbers to show they were continuing to be a stellar leader. My impression is that the guard and reserve take a lot better care of their planes because there is a lot more "ownership" and also because it's a tighter group of people. You aren't gonna beat on a plane if you know the guy personally who is gonna have to fix it.
I agree that the Guard takes good care of their stuff. They are almost all gone, but the most of the Hueys I saw in Guard units were well taken care of. Old as they were, they were clean, well maintained and ready to go if they were needed... I think you are right, it's a ownership thing, but it's a shame because it costs all of us in the long run.
The main problem with engines it's just the temperature, it's the temp change. I've heard of T56 engines running continuously for a long time when in industrial applications. Plus, they can run on anything flammable with the right fuel nozzles. GT
I would be surprised if any industrial application runs them as hard as we do as the fuel burn rates are way way higher. When required to meet climb gradients we will run them at temps that are very limited time duration. I will ask an engineer but my impression was that the major concern with rapid power adjustment (really just from high to low power on the ground) is that you risk their being excess fuel which can cause torching out the exhaust.
Oh, they don't run them nearly as hard as you guys do. I guess my point was that heat (to a point of course) isn't the problem. Is the change in temperature that causes cracks etc. GT
